50 Cent: Floyd Don’t Tweet

We’re always wary when a promoter attracts more attention that his fighters. That was a Don King specialty and it always served him, if not his fighters, well. But from our vantage point, be it in the clouds, underfoot, or a thorn in the side, it’s the fighters who matter. They’re the ones spilling blood for our entertainment. Promoters have a role to play. They’re a necessary evil, but they shouldn’t be mistaken for the main attraction.

As the new kid on the block, 50 Cent is moving full steam ahead without his former best friend and short-lived business partner Floyd Mayweather.

Yesterday at the Fortune Boxing Gym in Hollywood, 50 and Yuriorkis Gamboa, one of his fighters, entertained the press, who were more in awe of the rapper/entrepreneur/newly minted boxing promoter than the undefeated former featherweight champion.

Perhaps that’s to be expected, since there’s no business like show business. But by all appearances 50 Cent is serious about the boxing biz. After all, he’s seen close up and personal the kind of revenue it can generate.

50 Cent told the assembled throng that he’s always been interested in boxing. That’s a good sign, since an interest in boxing would seem a prerequisite for the job he’s undertaking.

“It’s the toughest sport,” 50 said, “and it’s the only one you can’t blame on anyone else.”

That sounds good, but the blame game is very much alive and well in the fight game. Golden Boy and Top Rank, pugilism’s Hatfields and McCoys, seem to specialize in it. And just last week Andre Berto blamed the referee Lou Moret for his loss to Robert Guerrero, even though no one was buying it.

A reporter at the gym asked with a straight face if 50 was training Gamboa.

“You don’t see no rings around my eyes, no blood coming out my nose. That should indicate I haven’t been doing rounds with Gamboa.”

50 Cent handles the press the way a future Hall of Famer handles a novice. He is smart. He can be charming. He has a sense of humor. He controls the action.

In an interview with Power 106 FM he explained, not for the first time, why his friendship with Mayweather went south.

“[Floyd] changed his mind,” said 50. “As he was actually going in to jail, he asked me to help him with Mayweather Promotions. As he actually got in and I took a look, I realized there is no Mayweather Promotions. There’s no LLC, there’s no seals, there’s no incorporated. Floyd is a Golden Boy fighter. He fights on every Golden Boy card. They do all the footwork. So when he says, ‘Help me with Mayweather Promotions,’ and it’s not there, I go okay, I know what he means. He wants me to put it together for him.

“So I do TMT Promotions. I get it all the way together. He comes home, and there’s the ‘Let’s get Floyd back in pocket’ campaign that goes on, where there’s $300,000 chains being bought and buying him the new Lamborghini. And I’m sitting there going, ‘When are you going to give me the money?’ It’s about [$2 million owed] at that point. When he finally does bring up the actual situation, he acted like he didn’t know anything, like ‘I didn’t tell y’all to do that.’”

50 Cent could be spinning, but what he said has the ring of truth, as do his remarks on the recent Twitter war between him and Money May.

“That’s not Floyd. Floyd don’t tweet. He’s got somebody next to him. See, everybody around him is co-dependent, so they gonna roll with what he says regardless. They’ll tell him what to say. As soon as he gets confused, he’s gonna go, ‘Okay, okay, um, just call out [50 Cent].’”

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keep it real why would 50 cross Floyd? to me it sounds like money man isn’t the sharpest money maker i thought he was, once he got out and had all them offer$$$ he sold out he figured why invest risk my loot when I’m getting paid to stay. so he hung 50 out to dry but it’s a mistake 50 will get paid fighters will continue to flock his way this is good for boxing a lot of great fights never took place because of rivalry between some of the major promoters, now there’s fresh blood in the ring and my money is on 50. Floyd is going to regret leaving like a boy instead of a man of his word. get that money 50!